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In yet another incident of brutality on civilians the Maoists killed six innocent villagers by slitting their throats in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon District on Sunday. According to Chhattisgarh Director General of Police Vishwa Ranjan, the Maoists dumped bodies of victims in a forest area in Manpur locality in Uchapur village of Rajnandgaon District. Police said that all bodies were found with their throats slit. Rajnandgaon is over 175 kilometers from Raipur bordering Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra. The victims included a village sarpanch (head) Bhilsai Mandwai (36), who was abducted early this week along with five others by a Maoists group suspecting then to be police informers. The incident has created panic among residents of Rajnandgaon. Security forces were finding it difficult to reach the spot, as it is in a densely forested pocket between Uchapur-Taregaon area. The security forces suspect that the Maoists might be waiting with a booby trap to ambush security personnel. In July 2009, the Maoists had lured a police convoy to a booby trap in the same area in which 29 policemen, including district superintendent of police B K Choubey, were killed. In a separate incident in Dantewada District of the state two Maoists have been killed in an encounter with security forces. The encounter took place in Kirandul area of the District. According to Dantewada Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra, police have recovered two 12-bore guns, a few tiffin carrier bombs and posters containing statements against public sector National Minerals Development Corporation (NMDC) Ltd. The NMDC has massive iron ore mining facilities at Bailadila hills of Kirandul and Bacheli areas of the District. Chhattisgarh has witnessed a spurt in Maoist violence in recent months. On April 6, the Maoists carried out the biggest ever attack on security forces in any peacetime operations killing 75 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Dantewada District. This was followed by another attack on May 8 in Bijapur District in which eight CRPF personnel were killed when their vehicle was blown up by the Maoists using IEDs.

Maoists kill six villagers in Chhattisgarh